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Thursday, June 28, 2012

First, before we go any further...I've been a bit of a blog slacker. Not many new/original tutorials recently, not great pictures, and not posting everyday. But in my defense, I've been super busy getting ready for this craft fair. In fact, look what I made...

I'm going to try to make more lanyards before the craft fair...but I still need to make a lot of birthday boards, so this may be all I have. And I even found a cute little bucket at Home Depot (in the paint section, only like $2) to put them all into

Now...onto the post...

They always say, in order to make money, you have to spend money. And, to a certain extent, I agree. I would never have been able to start selling my Birthday Boards on Etsy without first investing in the supplies to make a few prototypes (and doing some research with different hardware/materials to figure out how best to make one). However, I really hate spending too much money for a business that, while growing, is growing pretty slowly and certainly isn't my primary form of income. As a result, I've become a bit obsessed with finding ways to grow my business for little to no money. Here's a few things I've learned along the way...

The Importance of Branding

Branding is free - it really is. And, it's so so so important. I have absolutely no marketing education (but I do a bit of marketing/communications at work...and by that I mean I hang around with the communications people and hope their brilliance rubs off on me). I'm still working on my branding and I really hope to come up with a logo at some point, but until I do, I'm at least trying to synchronize everything together. So, my etsy shop, my blog, my email, my paypal, everything is under Jane's Girl Designs. I figure it's less confusing than having 18 different names, and I'm also hoping that people that stop by my etsy shop decide to visit my blog or vice versa. I need to work on the appearance/logo...but for now I've been focusing on cute, girly, and crafty.

Right in line with branding is just having a professional appearance. I think my blog has been looking a bit better recently, with the help of a title bar and background from the cutest blog on the block. Completely free and definitely worth checking out.

Business Cards are probably a good idea

With this upcoming craft fair I've realized that business cards are a must. Really anyone with an etsy shop should have business cards and include them with orders they send out. Well I was a little slow on this train but I finally ordered some for a good price. Vistaprint offers free business cards on their website - you just pay S&H for $7.50. What this actually boils down to is 250 nice cards, with one of their design templates (quite a few to choose from) and on the back of each card in really small type it says "grow your business with Vistaprint." Of course, you can get shinier cards, no vistaprint mention on the back, and upload your own design but all of that costs a bit more..so I went he cheap route. And I really love how they came out!

Sorry, the pictures sucks. That seems to be a trend with me recently. I promise I'll buck that. I've been a blog slacker.

Anyway, the card is sort of a light blue color with brown detailing. It's simple and just what I wanted. I didn't include my blog address on there, but I plan to write it on the back for now. Moving forward I'll hopefully have a logo and more involved cards...but for $7.50 this is a great start!

There's also the option of buying the printer paper at Office Depot and printing your own business cards. The price of that didn't really make it a cheaper/better option than vistaprint for me.

Spread the Love

I'm not sure this really helps, but I've been trying to do more than just read the craft blogs I always read. I've been reading more blogs, expanding, and commenting. Not crazing commenting to every post, but giving the occasional "wow, love this idea" comment. Because...I love comments (but never really get them...maybe someday!). Plus, I leave all my comments publicly as Jane's Girl Designs...again, just trying to get my name out there.

There are a ton of other tips I'm sure...and I find new ones every day..but recently these have been my focus.

And I know I've been talking up this craft room, but it's definitely coming together! Last night we built our table (walmart shelves and painted doors, an idea from pinterest) and that has really expanded my work space immensely. I can't wait to get it done and be able to post some nice pictures!

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

I love a good deal. If something is super cheap (or better yet free), I purchase it. Just ask Mr. J.G. I'm a hardcore hoarder and and sucker for a good deal.

As I mentioned on Sunday, I'm working dilligently to create the best craft room ever in our house (relocated, bigger, better, probably the best..ever). Anyway, I'm also trying to adjust my craft storage so that it looks nicer, more things are visible and tidy, and everything is easy to get to. I found this great idea the other day on Sew Many Ways to make yarn storage out of a french drain pipe. It's super cheap and easy and came out pretty good...see...

So the first thing I did was run out to Lowes and grabbed the cheapest piece of french drain I could find - $5.50! See, I was super excited about it...

Then once I got home I did the following:

(1) measure the depth of my bookshelf - I decided that 11" pieces of pipe would fit just inside the shelf

(2) cut the drain pipe into 11" pieces using a little hand saw (this makes a mess becuase the plastic kind of shreds...so be prepared to clean it all up afterward)

(3) hose off the pieces of drain pipe and let them dry outside (they were already kind of filthy anyway, and then after cutting they had the little bits of plastic particles all over them)

(4) line them up on the shelf and fill them with yarn!

One drain pipe cut at 11" pieces was exactly enough to fill this small shelf. I'm thinking I may go get another drain pipe and create a bigger area now that I know it works so well. I still have a ton of yarn left to put away too. I also think it would be great for a bunch of other things as well...

Sunday, June 24, 2012

How cute is this banner? The ladies from Uncommon did a guest post on Brassy Apple and shared this awesome tutorial! Looks like it would be really cheap to make, but looks so nice. There's something very quaint and small-town about July 4th decorations that I really love.

I love using those large paper mache letters for decorating - they're super cheap and make a nice bold statement. Check these out (great use of scrap fabric too!) over at Bergs in the Burbs. I've been wanting to paint our laundry room orange and do something similar...but so far I can't convince Mr. J.G. that an orange laundry room will look awesome. Perhaps this cute picture of another bold color will do the trick...

It has been SOOOO hot and humid here...so this lemonade looks extra delightful to me! Recipe is over at Craftberry Bush. I'll definitely be trying this over the weekend!﻿

Also, big doings in our house... We've relocated (well, we're still relocating as we speak) my craft room within the house. I'll definitely post all about it once the move and decorating is done...but let's just say my craft room with quadruple in size and I'll have multiple workstations for all my different projects. Needless to say, I'm beyond excited!

Friday, June 22, 2012

A blogger on a mission...that's me. I really want to start regularly blogging, and I'm kind of loving it so far. For me, organization is key. KEY. So I knew that the first step to regularly blogging (so far so good) was to have a planner of some type to track out my posts. This is also super helpful because I have been writing most of my posts in advance, then just publishing them when I'm good and ready.

Ok, back to the planner idea.

I scoured the internet - I wanted something simple and free to make. And I found some AMAZING printables. They were super simple (there are some great ones out there that are just way too complicated for where I'm at right now). They also end up making a book that's only 5.5" x 8.5" so it fits in my purse better just in case I'm hit with inspiration at the grocery store.

Here's my finished planner - whatcha think???

Granted, it's not perfect, but I love it. Kind of hard to read the title in that picture, but it says Jane's Girl Designs and then below "a blog planner."

Here's how I made it:

(1) I found these awesome printables (as mentioned before) on pinterest:

I printed mine in black and white to save money, but the color one is so cute!

So I printed them off double sided (make sure to line them up correclty on your printer) and made enough for a year's worth of blog planning. Once I had them all printed I chopped them all in half with my paper cutter so that they would make a book.

(2) I wanted to do something simple for the binding (cost effective and I wanted to be able to add more sheets as I went) so I just opted for some binder rings I had laying around. I three hole punched all of my sheets and then used the binder rings to hold it all together. I adjusted my three hole punch to fit my 8.5" side better than the normal 11" side. If you can't adjust your three hole punch easily, then you could always use a single hole punch (but that may take a bit longer).

Sorry the picture is kinda crappy...but you get the idea.

(3) For the cover and back, I just cut some chipboard the same size as my sheets and three hole punched it as well. Once I had my chipboard cut and punched, I decided I'd try something a little different to decorate it. So I grabbed my burlap, freezer paper, and turned on my iron...

I ironed the burlap scrap onto a piece of freezer paper (put the freezer paper down on the ironing board first shiny side up, then lay the burlap over it (so the shiny side of the freezer paper is up against the burlap) and iron - be careful not to let you hot iron touch the paper unless you want a gross gooey iron). It takes a bit of ironing, but eventually your burlap will adhere to the freezer paper. The freezer paper stabilizes the burlap so that you can...

PRINT ON IT!

That's right, print...on burlap. You just run it through your ink jet printer and it prints. I've had better luck with this in the past - I was in a bit of a hurry for this one so it didn't print out perfectly, but I still love it. My printer is old, so I've been ok printing on burlap with it, but I probably wouldn't recommend doing it with a really nice new fancy printer. Because, you're still putting burlap in your printer. It's like asking for a printer jam.

Once I got it all printed out, I cut out the portion I printed. Then I attached it to my planner with little vintage looking brads I had.

And that's about it. I'm not sure how long the burlap will survive getting thrown around in my purse without fraying too much. I did make sure to put the brads far enough into the burlap to allow for some fraying...

Thursday, June 21, 2012

I need to take a moment to be disturbingly honest with you. I'm a terrible adult. I mean, really. I fall asleep on the couch instead of going up to bed a lot. I regularly forget to put the trash out on trash day. And, I have an ongoing pile of trash in my car.

Really, what it comes down to is this...I wake up late, therefore I leave late for work, therefore I'm in a hurry. So, I eat in the car. And I have trash as a result (usually a combination of paper towels, half eaten bagels, and the occasional half eaten piece of cold pizza). I would always put these in that little pocket in the door. So every time Mr. Jane's Girl would drive my car, he'd cerimoniously empty the door pocket full of trash. Usually this was associated with some comment of "honey, you're a bad adult." Yeah, I admit it. Bad adult here.

And THEN I saw this awesome pinterest project:

So I made my own...see!!

It's a trash can bag - for my car! And, the best part is that it fits over my stick shift thing (on an automatic, not a manual) so it's right at my finger tips.

This little button serves no real purpose (I made the hole large enough to just slip over the stick shift) BUT it does make it look a bit more finished.

And see, here it is hanging in my car:

All ready to fill up with junk!

Want your own? You should serioulsy check out the tutorial I found for it - over here at A Ditchin' Time Quilts. The pattern is really easy to follow and only takes an hour or so to complete.

And yes, I know they sell these already all made, but here's the problem with those...they are always made to go on the back of a seat. I don't have kids and there's usually no one in the back seat that needs to throw trash away. Just me. Up here. In the front seat. Hence the beauty of this homemade one. Not to mention, this is way prettier than those bland black ones.

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

I thought I'd give a little update on the community garden and my progress thus far as a gardener extraordinaire. First, there has been a ton of updates to the garden in general. We got two grants this year (that I wrote...go me!) that gave us over $6,000 to spend on garden improvements. When you look at that combined with what our small group has given, worked on, and also everyone that has volunteered their services around the community, we have a pretty awesome garden going!

Look at this place! Not too shabby for a small town (less than 4,500 residents). The local high school wood shop class built the pergola and bench. We have a few other benches under a shade tree near by that a member of our group built for us. Then we have around 15 plots - all of which are growing all sorts of awesome things on them. And...if you look real close you can see a shed in the background - we just built that and we plan to store our gardening tools, etc. in there. We have more plans, including a compost barrel and fruit trees.

But, perhaps the most impressive (or more like shocking) part is that I'm actually growing things in my little plot too! Look at the veggies I took home on Sunday...

The top row is a bunch of peas and the bottom row is from my gourmet bean mix. So far it's mostly just producing green and yellow beans (with one lone purple bean) but it looked like there would be more purple beans to come. These beans were super yummy last night for dinner, but the strangest thing happened when I steamed them - the purple bean lost it's color and turned green. By the time they were all cooked I couldn't even tell which one was the purple one. Strange...

Big boy tomatoes. Have I ever mentioned how much I love tomatoes??? Mr. Jane's Girl (yeah, sorry Chris, that name is sticking) hates tomatoes, won't eat him. Have you ever heard of such a thing? I was raised eating them whole though. I serioulsy contemplated having a plot of just tomato plants, that's how much I love them.

Cucumber plants. These are huge and have nearly taken over half of my plot. There are blooms all over them which is a good sign.

I also have carrots that look promising. It was another gourment blend of orange, purple (crazy huh?) and white carrots. I can't wait to try a purple carrot. I was going to take a million more pictures of my garden, but I think everyone else there probably thinks I'm crazy. Every time I go I spend half of my time watering and caring for my plants, and the other half of the time taking pictures while loudly exclaiming "oh my gosh, it's growing!"

The best part of my garden plot - I've convinced Mr. Jane's Girl that I have a green thumb (or at least haven't killed everything) so I think next year we'll put a raised garden bed in the backyard. Yeah! Go me! :)

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Whoa! Where are we? A parallel universe? Oh no, no worries...but we do have some exciting changes around here.

First - a whole new name (say what?!). That's right, the blog has officially been renamed Jane's Girl Designs. No, I'm not just have a case of the Princes...this will remain the official blog name permanently. See, my Etsy business has really been taking off (well, kind of...for me anyway) and soon I'll be expanding to craft fairs. Branding is important to me. And I plan on starting to regularly blog (I even made a blog planner people - I'll post more on that later). Well, my Etsy shop is called Jane's Girl Designs, check it out at janesgirldesigns.etsy.com. So really my blog needed to line up with that.

Second - a new URL (apparently you found me, so that's cool). I wanted to have some uniformity between the blog and the URL, and the closest thing I could muster was jgirldesigns.blogspot.com. I seriously nearly threw my iPad across the room trying to get a new URL to work (just ask Chris, who will herein be referred to as Mr. Jane's Girl or Mr. JG for short...don't worry, I told him, he's not thrilled). Anyway, make sure to change over your bookmarks and things. I'm sure there are hundreds of people bookmarking this blog (har har har). If you go to my old URL, peteysprojects.blogspot.com, I created a dummy blog that will link you back here. Oh, and don't worry, I don't think Petey is offended by the renaming. He's more concerned about getting table scraps, people.

Alright, I know this is a weeny post but I don't really want to muddle up an awesome crafting/gardening post (oh yeah...both to come this week) with this post all about changes. Sooo...this is what you'll get for now. But, as a teaser...here are a few things to come this week:

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Car trash bag (it hangs off my shifter thing - on an automatic)

A garden update - things are actually growing (those are cherry tomatoes ripening as we speak)

Monday, June 18, 2012

With my upcoming craft fair, I decided a craft/vendor apron was a must. I didn't want to spend any money, so I just used some leftover lanyard fabric - and waa-laa!

I'm pretty happy with how it came out - I was inspired by a picture on pinterest...but there was no link to a tutorial or anything...so I just made this up as I went. So here's my craft/vendor apron tutorial.

First, I just started with some scraps of fabric - I would say 1/2 yard to 2/3 yard of each fabric (4 fabrics total - three for the front and one for the back) would probably be enough - the random pieces I had were probably less than that.

Start with the main apron piece first, then we'll add the waist band/ties at the end.

Once you have your fabric cut, lay your back piece aside - you won't need that for a bit.

Then focus on layer one and two - these two layers will form the fronts of your pockets. Using a nice and hot/steaming iron, focus on one of your long (21") sides - fold it over once approximately a quarter of an inch and iron it down. Then fold that over a second time and iron it down as well. This way you'll have a nice pretty edge and no fraying.

Once you have the side ironed - sew along that edge to secure your new finished edge. You want to do this to ONE long side of both layer one and layer two. These two sides will become the tops of your pockets.

Now lay your pieces as follow - layer one on top, layer two below it, and layer three at the bottom. All three pieces of fabric should have the right side facing you. Your finished edges on layer one and two should be toward the top of your fabric. All three pieces of fabric should have the bottom edges all lined up (as shown in the picture). Basically, your fabric should be laid out just as it will look on the apron.

Now determine where you want your pockets to be placed and go ahead and stitch straight vertical lines from the top edge of layer two down the the bottom edge of all three fabrics. These stitched lines will break up your pockets. I made sure to include multiple skinny pockets for pens, medium sized pockets for scissors, and larger pockets for tape, cell phone, and cash.

Now that you have the front of your apron done, you need to secure it to the back. Place the front of your apron face up on your working surface, then lay your back fabric face down on top of it and line up the edges (note - the fabrics should have the right sides facing each other). Make sure that all of the front layers on your apron are all lined up - they should already be secured in place but double check before you begin sewing. Now sew around the edges of the two pieces of fabric, leaving an opening large enough for you to turn the apron inside out.

Now go ahead and flip the apron inside out. I used scissors to push out the corners. Once you have it flipped inside out - iron out the edges so that they look nice and crisp.

I also ironed around all the way the edges - that will close up the hole from turning it inside out and sewing it the whole way around also gives it a more finished look.

Now the apron part is done, so you'll want to make your waist band/ties. Here's where I literally just pieced together what I had left of my fabric.

I used layer one (the smallest pocket) for the main visible parts of the apron - but I didn't have quite enough for ties so I put some fabric from layer three on the ends. These pieces are 5" wide and the longer pieces are 31", the shorter pieces are 15".

I cut one of the longer pieces in half and laid out my strips as followed:

I basically centered the long piece of the layer 1 fabric. I didn't want a seam right in the middle of my waistband in the front of the apron - that's why I cut one of the longer pieces in half and centered everything else around one long piece.

Now I sewed each piece together end to end to form one long strip of fabric. Moral of the story - you'll need one total strip of fabric that's 5" wide by approximately 90" long. Once I had that done, I centered it over the front of my apron. I place the apron piece and the waist band with right sides facing, and the top edge of the apron lined up with the edge of the waist band. Sew along that edge, then flip the waist band up and iron into place. It should look like this:

Now focus on the other side of your waist band - I ironed the fabric over approximately .25" - like so:

Now line up the new ironed edge you've created on the waistband with the back of the apron - there should be a stitch line from when you attached the waist band. I simply lined my new edge with that stitch line and then ironed the fabric over in place.

Look at those steam/water stains on our ironing board cover...yuck! Anyway, sew the waist band in place by sewing along that edge where the waist band and the back of the apron meet up. Make sure this line is nice and straight and pretty because it will show up on the front of your apron.

Now to finish the ties off, I simply ironed over each edge of the tie .25" (just like we did above) and then folded the fabric in half so the two edges meet up - then sew them together with the wrong sides facing. You'll have to do something similar at the ends of the ties as well to finish them off nicely. I'm sure there's an easier/better way to attach a waistband, but this worked well for me and the finished product came out really nice!

If you have any questions about this tutorial - I completely understand because my instructions were probably a bit confusing! Feel free to leave a comment or email me at janesgirldesigns@gmail.com. Oh, and if you make one (and better yet if you have a way to improve on this tutorial) - send me a pic and tell me all about it!!!

I don't have kids...but my sister does...so I see this helping...a lot..someday. Just Sew Sassy came up with a great tutorial for this guy.

Wow - I love this idea for organizing scrap paper! This comes from I Love My Three Sons - her whole art room is amazing but this may be my favorite part! I LOVE looking at craft rooms/art rooms and seeing where people create. It gives me great ideas for my craft room.

Now I know most everyone has seen these before - but I love them and have been wanting desperately to have a wall of them in my craft room. I also think they'd be adorable in a nursery. Purl Bee has a tutorial for us - taking out all the guess work.

and one final shoutout...

To all the dad's on father's day...thanks for supporting us crafting kids on a daily basis!

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Everyone has a dream in life. Most include lots of money, living like you're in a rap video, or having a big love story moment. Not me, though. Don't get me wrong, I would LOVE to be rapping on a boat, while half naked men shake their asses at the cameras. AND my love story moment came true...(sorry, I promise this won't be an annoying mushy lovey dovey post). BUT my other lifelong dreams have primarily revolved around crafting. And slowly but surely...some of them are starting to come true.

Dream one: have a kickass craft room.

People, my craft room is kick ass. I plan to get some pretty great pictures of it in the coming weeks as it continues to grow and become more kick ass by the minute. Plus thanks to Etsy, I can now have a whole "about me" section in my shop including pictures of my "studio" or in my case, my kick ass craft room. Here's a picture from a few months ago...

This picture really doesn't do it justice (and I have even more awesome stuff and a bigger shelf in there now - more posts on that to follow) BUT it does show that I indeed have a craft room with shelves full of paint, yarn, and glue. Let the jealousy begin.

Dream two (and really the biggest): make a living off of crafting

Nooooot quite there yet...but my Etsy shop has certainly had it's fair share of profit that's at least helped me to pay bills, etc. I've also been able to purchase a drill press to add to my productivity. And I used a bit of my profits to get a new cruiser.

No, my Etsy profits have not been good enough to me to allow me to get a new motorcycle (that's Chris'). Mine is the orange one. And it's great. It's a one speed though, and I'm not in the best shape of my life...so I'm just riding it around my neighborhood now until I get up the courage/strength/nerve to ride it down to my community garden plot.

Moral of the story - dream two is a work in progress.

Dream three: have my own booth at a craft fair

Yes, this just got that lame that we are talking about a lifelong dream of having a booth...at a craft fair. Don't judge me sitting behind your little computer screens - everyone has a dream, no need to poo poo on mine :) Anyway, I've always been a little intimidated by the idea of my own craft fair booth. First - I never felt like my products would sell (and they may not) but the success of my Etsy shop has helped me get over that (almost at 100 sales ya'll). Second, there seemed like a lot of upfront expenses for the thing. Turns out there really isn't. I'm using stuff around the house for my display. I already have most of the supplies to make a good amount of product (I'm sure the little old man in Iowa that cuts my little discs for my birthday boards thinks I'm crazy when I order them 2,000 at a time).

I've already applied for one fair - and my mom seems to think I'll get a spot and she knows things about this craft fair. However, the application required me to send in a picture of my display. And so began the last 2 days of craft fair mania in our household.

Step One - google the crap out of "craft fair booth display ideas." That part was pretty much already done, but I did go back and take a few notes.Step Two - take over my half of garage and lay out a faux display for the picture. Done and done. I'm sure Chris loves coming home to a small craft fair display in half of the garage. At this point...nothing about what I do in my free time seems to surprise him much.

Well, it needs some work still, but here's what I came up with:

So I started by laying out a couple of our largest (and lightest weight I could find) folding tables. Then I started looking for something to cover them with. Keep in mind, I didn't want to spend ANY money on anything becuase I may still have to go buy a tent if I can't find one to borrow (it's an outdoor craft fair, in Kansas, in July). Luckily we had a few light tan sheets that seemed to work ok together. Then I had a large piece of burlap that I could lay over the top. I didn't want to cut the burlap because technically it's wedding burlap. But I was able to just lay it over both tables, no cutting required. That large blue frame on the right was a garage sale find - $10, hideous print and frame. Just spray painted the frame and chalkboard paint on the print. I'll explain how the birthday boards work, etc on it once the chalkboard paint dries.

Chris made that awesome peg board display. We already had the peg board, so we just had to buy some 1x2s to build a frame, and then used a piano hinge to secure the two pieces together. I plan to hang lots of birthday boards from the peg board for display. I got the idea from Sugar Bee Crafts - available here: http://www.sugarbeecrafts.com/2011/09/peg-board-display-case.html. I still may paint the peg board so it fits in with everything else a little better.

Now here are some close ups...

I got that awesome frame at a garage sale for $.50. It was really awful looking when I bought it - bad gold colored frame and the picture inside the frame was strange. But I just spray painted the frame and then painted chalkboard paint over the picture (it was a print, not an original painting..I don't feel bad). I'll be able to write all sorts of good stuff about my booth once the chalkboard paint dries. I put it up on an antique kid's chair we had (why do we have that? becuase I'm crazy). Everything I googled said to add height to your table. Alright, I can do that.

I plan to sell the birthday boards with the discs sold individually, so the card catalog drawers will hold all of my discs (arranged by color). I have some brown paper lunch sacks people can put the discs into - I also have a ton of little signs framed on my table with info about pricing and my Etsy shop. Oh, and the bunting on the front of the tables is made with ribbon, scrapbook paper, and these super sticky dots I used when compiling my wedding invitations (a ton leftover!).

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I tried to use more antiques/baskets/random stuff from around our house to add more interest. Oh and the random empty minature easel will hold business cards. I've ordered some free off vistaprint (just have to pay shipping) that should come in the next couple of weeks.

My application has been submitted, so assuming I can participate come see me on July 4th at the Prairie Village Villagefest! I'll be the one dorkily excited over my first craft fair booth. I'm also going to apply for the Basehor Craft Fair happening this November - but they jury their applications so competition may be tough!

I still have a few things I need to do to prep, but I've already printed my sales tax certificate, requested my "square" credit card reader that attaches to my iphone so I can take credit cards, and started reading up on the best ways to collect sales tax. Anything I'm missing???